Friday, November 30, 2012

The Christie administration’s decision to tax the sale of medical marijuana is ill-advised. Neither the law nor the regulations to enact the law call for such a tax. In fact, the New Jersey Division of Taxation’s Technical Bulletin issued 2/16/10 clearly notes that, “Effective October 1, 2005, all drugs for human use, including prescribed drugs and over-the-counter drugs are exempt from sales and use tax.” http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/pdf/pubs/tb/tb63.pdf

Medical marijuana in New Jersey’s strictly regulated Medicinal Marijuana Program is most like a prescription medicine. Physicians will write their recommendation for a specific and limited amount of marijuana; patients will take that recommendation to a licensed Alternative Treatment Center (ATC); the ATC will dispense that specific amount of marijuana to the patient; the patient may only return to the ATC at specified intervals for refills; and, there are penalties for misuse of the marijuana that the patient receives.

Prescription drugs are not subject to sales tax in New Jersey and neither should medical marijuana be subject to this tax.

It has been said that the original sponsor of the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, Senator Nicholas Scutari, “had in mind” to tax medical marijuana, though he never included that language in the bill. Well, we know that Sen. Scutari had a lot of things in mind when he introduced that legislation—things that would actually help patients, and guarantee implementation of the bill. Some of the things Sen. Scutari wanted that were included in the bill that passed the entire state Senate by a vote of 22 - 16 on February 23, 2009 were:
•All chronic pain patients would qualify, not just cancer and AIDS patients;
•Out-of-state ID cards would be recognized and respected;
•Patients could grow 6 plants each to guarantee access to the drug.

None of these things were included in the final version of the law, which passed about a year later in January 2010. Instead only restrictions and impediments were placed in the path of patient access. These were followed by burdensome and unnecessary regulations that have kept this safe and effective medicine from desperately ill patients whose suffering could be eased by it.

I worked for the State of New Jersey for over 25 years. I started working for the Department of State for two summers while I was still in high school in the 1960’s. In the 1970’s I worked for the Department of Human Services for four years. Between 1984 and 2006 I worked for the Department of Corrections. If I learned nothing else in all that time with the state, it was, “If it wasn’t documented, it wasn’t done.”

Nowhere is there documentation that the state expected to collect taxes from the sale of medical marijuana. It is not included in the original Compassionate Use Act that was introduced in 2005, and it is not included in the final version of the Act that passed into law in January 2010. Nor is there any mention of the collection of sales tax in the 100 plus pages of regulations that were adopted by the Department of Health to enact this law. Nor is there anything about sales taxes in the regulations adopted by the Board of Medical Examiners.

This is another example of an arbitrary and capricious burden that is being put on the patients who qualify for this program. It takes its place with other rules from the Christie administration —like the physician registry, the 10% cap on THC, and the micromanagement of ATC’s--that guarantee limited patient access, sub-standard marijuana, and high cost to the patient. If, that is, the program ever gets working in the first place.

Governor Christie has repeatedly exceeded his constitutional powers in interfering with a law that he does not agree with. Adding a sales tax on medical marijuana is another example of this.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Susan Sturner is a card-carrying patient in the Medicinal
Marijuana Program in New Jersey. She is
very angry. She has paid the required
fees and jumped through all the hoops the Department of Health has established in
order to register in the program. But
she still can’t get her medicine.

Greenleaf Alternative Treatment Center in Montclair, NJ has
been, so far, the only medical marijuana dispensary to get a final permit from the state. But Greenleaf
has yet to open its doors to patients. Susan
called around. She said the Department
of Health points to Greenleaf as responsible for the delay; Greenleaf points to
the Department of Health.

Meanwhile, Susan still can’t get her medicine.

Susan is a glaucoma patient and she faces blindness. The pressure in her eyes--her intraocular
pressure--is dangerously high. Her
ophthalmologist has recommended a major surgical procedure--putting tubes in
her eyes--to control this pressure. Any surgical procedure entails significant risk. A far less risky option—and far less costly--is
marijuana therapy. Marijuana has been
shown to reduce intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients who, like Susan, do
not respond to traditional pharmaceutical treatment.

In fact, the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana
law specifically allows glaucoma patients to qualify for marijuana
therapy. But Susan still can’t get her
medicine, despite the fact that this law passed nearly three years ago.

Susan is ready and willing to sue Governor Christie and anyone
else in state government who is preventing her from obtaining medicine to which
she is legally entitled. In fact, her ID
card is over a month old, which means she has been paying the state for a month
for nothing.

Susan came to the November meeting of the Coalition for
Medical Marijuana—New Jersey, which was held as usual at the Lawrence Township
Library in Mercer County.

She discussed going out-of-state. Sure, she could travel to Rhode Island and
use her New Jersey ID card to legally purchase medical marijuana there. But if she brings the marijuana back to her
New Jersey home, she faces arrest, imprisonment, and a host of civil
penalties.

Susan said that we should send a sympathy card to the
governor from all the people who have died during the failure of the Christie
administration to implement this law. We
discussed her idea at the meeting but decided that it would be impossible for
two reasons: first, we could never figure out all their names, and second,
because the list of cards would be in the tens of thousands and we could not
afford to send that many cards.

Tens of thousands of New Jersey hospice patients die every
year who have not gotten the medical marijuana they are entitled to by
law. Add to these the cancer patients,
the patients with AIDS, the seizure patients, the patients with neurological
conditions and the patients with abdominal conditions, and the number of
patients who die suffering needlessly every year is staggering.

And remember, New Jersey’s list of medical conditions that
qualify for marijuana therapy is the most restrictive in the nation. If the full range of marijuana’s therapeutic
potential were recognized and permitted, hundreds of thousands of patients here
could be helped in a safe and cost-effective way. As it is, hundreds of thousands of New Jersey
patients, like Susan Sturner, continue to be harmed every day by the state’s
failure to fully implement this law.

NJ’s Medicinal Marijuana Program (MMP) is still not functioning—not a single patient has yet gotten any. About 300 patient ID cards have been issued. Dir. O’Brien issues final permit to Greenleaf ATC; says supply of medical marijuana was not damaged by Hurricane Sandy. The lawsuit against DOH for failure to implement the state’s MMP is progressing and it asks the court to appoint CMMNJ monitor of the program.

Schedule of CMMNJ 2013 meetings: Lawrence Library not available Feb. & Nov. 2013. CMMNJ meetings are the second Tuesday of each month from 7 - 9 PM at the Lawrence Twp.
Library, 2751 Brunswick Pike, Lawrence Twp., Tel. #609.882.9246. All are welcome. (Meeting at the library does not imply their endorsement of our issue.) For more info, contact:

So far, 239 patients have registered for ID cards with DOH; in addition to other fees, patients must pay $65 for background checks for caregivers. Problems with doctors continue.

ATC update: More delays; promised September opening of Montclair ATC did not occur—final inspection of facility several weeks away. No ATCs open yet. The lawsuit against DOH for failure to implement the state’s MMP is progressing. Suggestions include demonstrations at DOH with tombstones of dead NJ patients.

Greenleaf Compassion Center was issued a permit today by the Department of Health to operate as an Alternative Treatment Center (ATCs) and dispense medicinal marijuana. The permit was issued after a final Department inspection of its Montclair facility. Montclair officials also recently granted a certificate of occupancy to Greenleaf, clearing the way for the Department to grant its permit.

"This permit marks a significant step forward in the implementation of New Jersey's Medicinal Marijuana Program and allows Greenleaf Compassion Center to begin dispensing medicinal marijuana to qualified patients," said New Jersey Health Commissioner Mary E. O'Dowd. "The Department is working with all ATCs to ensure the program serves patients safely and securely."

Patients and caregivers will receive identification cards this week from the Medicinal Marijuana Program (MMP). Greenleaf will contact patients to schedule an appointment in the order in which patients registered. Patients and caregivers must bring their MMP identification card with them to the appointment.

Approximately 320 patients have either registered with the program or are in the process of completing registration, while more than 175 physicians have registered.

"This is a new product. Patients may want to make a limited purchase initially until they know which of the three available varieties best meets their needs," Commissioner O'Dowd said. ATCs can also provide guidance to patients on ways to use the product without the harmful effects of smoking.

The other five Alternative Treatment Centers are in various stages of finalizing locations or background examinations of the principals of their organizations.

The Department opened the patient registry in August. The registration process is available on the Department's Medicinal Marijuana webpage, which includes a checklist on how to register, answers to frequently asked questions and an option to submit questions via the website to customer services representatives.

Patients interested in registering should ask their doctor if he or she has signed up or would be willing to participate. If their physician is not interested-patients can check on the Department's Medicinal Marijuana webpage for physicians who have registered. The webpage provides a physician listing by county.

A Customer Service Unit is available to assist patients, caregivers and physicians in the registration process. The customer service line, (609) 292-0424, is open from 8 am to 5pm Monday through Friday.

Ken and Jim at Redbank Fundraiser

About The Coalition

Coalition members hold diverse opinions, but we all agree:

Arresting patients is wrong, and it must stop now.

Modern clinical research, centuries of experience and the impassioned personal accounts of thousands of real patients concur: Marijuana can alleviate symptoms of certain serious medical conditions, and it can do so when other drugs fail to help.

Doctors should be free to recommend this medicine to promote health, and sick or injured New Jerseyans should be free to use it responsibly.

The safety margin for therapeutic marijuana is as wide as it can be ─there is no known lethal dose.

New Jersey healthcare professionals dispense potentially lethal drugs every day. We trust them to do so very carefully, and solely to benefit their patients. Common sense and compassion demand that doctors should control non-lethal marijuana medicine for those who truly need it. To make this important change a reality, your voice is needed.

The New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act was introduced in the State Senate in January 2005 by Senator Nicholas Scutari (D-Linden). A companion bill is pending in the Assembly, sponsored by Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Princeton) and Assemblyman Michael Carroll (R-Morris Township).